Sir Arthur Elton was a pioneering documentary film maker, collector of material relating to the Industrial Revolution, and early supporter of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. His collection, which came to Ironbridge in 1978, has been described as ‘the best in Europe and perhaps the most important in the world’.
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Census records are often associated with family or house history research but they can be used to investigate the social history of Britain and reveal the diversity of households and family units that existed in the past. The release of the 1921 census opened many new avenues of research and has provided revelations about the lives of many historic individuals and their families, including the family of Cecilia Maw (1876-1942), a locally born artist, and Florence Amy Thursfield (1867-1948).
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The mid-Victorian period was the age of imitation and reproduction. Every style from naturalism to Gothic and Classicism was revived in art, furnishings, metalwork and ceramics.
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In response to the relatively poor British designs on display at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the 'Science and Art Department' was established by the Board of Education in 1856, in South Kensington.
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Many students at the Coalbrookdale School of Art already worked in the industries of the Gorge, including the Coalbrookdale Company, Craven Dunnill & Co. and Maw & Co. These companies often paid for their employees to attend art classes, to learn their craft and develop their designing skills.
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